Five features we wish Android would borrow from iOS

A healthy dose of inspiration from your competitors never hurt anyone.

Android and iOS have existed in tension for a few years now, and each is continually borrowing ideas, designs, and features from the other. Nothing wrong with a little friendly theft when trying to stay competitive.

The operating systems are far from exact mirrors of each other, and they have even grown more distinct with new generations. But there are a few features we’d still love to see cross sides, in the interest of keeping the operating systems functional and easy for customers to use. During the weekend, we looked at features Apple would be smart to borrow from Google. Today we turn the tables. Here are five features we’ve enjoyed using in iOS that we wouldn’t mind seeing make the transition to Android. (Make sure to share your own ideas, or what you think of ours, in the comments below.)

Notifications center/Do Not Disturb mode

Android made the notification menu first and made it right. For a long time, iOS notifications and alerts were more or less a junk drawer where everything kept disappearing. The apps had their little red numerical alert badges, sometimes, to indicate activity within an app. But should you not have that app on your main home screen or pass it by swiping through the other pages of apps, it’s like your friend may as well not have played you that pity tile in Carcassonne, thus saving your bacon.

But with the new notifications center, iOS gave users a centralized place to flip notifications from apps on or off without having to dig into settings menus within the app. Even better, the alerts users do want to use are customizable: whether the lock screen shows alerts, whether they’re banners or pop-up windows, how many queue up in the drop-down notifications menu… the options are many.

Enlarge/ Notifications in Android: they are many, and they can be a little messy.

Google’s notifications, on the other hand, are still determined primarily on the part of the application, and users have to dig into app menus to toggle them on or off. Many apps offer options for things like blinking a light on the device or making a sound when there’s a new notification, but every app is different. There is no good way to consolidate or synchronize the way app alerts interact with your phone because there is no top-down view.

Do Not Disturb mode is a subcategory of notifications center. With one flip of a switch, your iOS device remains blessedly silent and dark until you decide to interact with it. You can silence a Google device or turn all notifications off. But as we noted previously, this is tiresome work. There are a couple of apps that mimic this functionality (save for letting phone calls through), but to have it built into the OS and accessible with one switch flip would be ideal.

Siri's personal assistant features

We mean no disrespect to Google Now. That part of Android certainly has its strengths over Siri, as we noted in our comparison piece, especially in the breadth of information it can process and access. But its voice recognition capabilities are still a bit lacking by comparison, and we’re thankful that the feature has a text entry component. Commands to text a friend, for instance, are more easily executed right from Siri than in Google Now.

Android is great at seeking out information (except in the instances where Siri accesses Wolfram Alpha, wherein Siri tends to better). But Google Now is worse at the personal life management aspects that Siri’s celebrity friends are so fond of trotting out in commercials. We know Android was first at text-to-speech, but we’d love to see it work better and more seamlessly from the front-facing Google Now.

iMessage's ubiquity

Technically speaking, this is not strictly an iOS feature. At least, some of the parts we love about it have nothing to do with iOS. But the ubiquity of the iMessage across iOS and OS X devices cannot be ignored. The ability to maintain conversations across iPhones and iPod touches and MacBook Pros is a joy.

Android shares a lot of iMessage’s features in Google Talk, including the cross-platform message syncing. But Talk can’t integrate with a phone number and can’t supersede or thread itself through a text message interface. Maintaining Google Talk conversations and text ones still requires two apps. iMessages can fall back into being SMSes if the occasion calls for it, but Google Talk is always data-based.

iMessage isn’t without its problems, especially if you have more than one address or phone number that messages can arrive to. Group conversations with people with multiple handles mean messages end up hither and thither, with one conversation broken into multiple threads. Set up your handles wrong, and suddenly an entire day’s worth of conversations end up on your iPad but nowhere else. Start up you computer, and the iMessage conversation sometimes loads as one entire side of an hours-long conversation.

But for its faults and occasional finickiness with regard to setup, we appreciate the ability to maintain one conversation across multiple devices from within one messaging interface. We wish the same for Google.

Enlarge/ The way Passbook integrates with travel and retail apps is nifty, and also, the future.

Passbook

Google is not lacking for brand-centric apps any more than iOS is. That is to say, you can’t swing a dead cat in Google Play or the App Store without hitting some app for a retail chain or travel service. But Android itself doesn’t offer an app-level place to consolidate all of the materials that go along with retail interactions; iOS does.

Passbook in iOS 6 gives users a centralized place to stash tickets, loyalty cards, gift cards, and other similar items. These all become accessible through one interface. Cashier at the register asks for your rewards card? No problem, it’s on your phone. (Well, for some stores, but Apple’s selection is pretty decent and growing.)

A Passbook equivalent would not be a trivial thing to implement, as it requires the cooperation of retailers through their apps to allow information and documents to be pulled into the central Passbook area. Samsung is hard at work on its own Passbook competitor, Wallet. Virtual name theft of Android’s own Wallet aside, Google should not take this lying down. We have absolute confidence in Google’s ability to wheedle and chide and throw its weight around to earn the favor and cooperation of all the necessary retail giants for a concierge-style app.

Enlarge/ Turn off all of the permissions with a few clicks centralized in one menu. Sure, you won't be able to use anything, but still.

Privacy menu

So you are in the Google Play store, browsing the app selection, and decide to treat yourself to a new toy. You pick out an app, click install, and your shopping experience comes to a halt: the app presents you with a long list of app permissions. Storage, location, camera, contacts—the app wants a lot from you. But you want the app! How can you say no? You cannot. There go all the little pieces of you and your identity off to the app’s servers. Soon you forget, until the app suffers a security breach and all your friends’ e-mail inboxes are flooded with spam.

That is an extreme scenario, but it’s easy to forget what apps are taking from you and when. While Android only lets you review app permissions per app within the settings, iOS gives a top down view of those settings grouped by permission (access to contacts, location, etc), and lets you toggle that access on or off all from within one menu. Admittedly, many users don’t think twice about these things, but in the event that they do, iOS makes permissions much easier to handle than Android and its apps do.

Pick all the nits!

In terms of features, Android has always been the more robust of the two mobile operating systems, and Google continues to build it out with every new iteration. Hence, it was a little difficult to scrape together specific features that were out-and-out inferior to iOS.

Our bigger problems with Android are more meta, both endemic to the platform and difficult to solve. For one, for all of the competitiveness the current version of Android presents to iOS, the vast majority of Android users aren’t even running the current version of the operating system. It happens for a variety of reasons—whether their phone has been deemed too obsolete for more updates, their updates are snagged in carrier developer hell, or the users are just plain ignorant. The latest version of Android can have all the features in the world, but that does no good for the people who can’t, or aren’t, running it. More to the point, most major Android handset makers skin the stock OS with their own UI overlay (Sense from HTC, TouchWiz from Samsung), so what stock Android does or doesn't do may be done or undone, however haphazardly, by hardware partners.

The second issue is that some of Android’s shortcomings, even the ones outlined here, are filled out by third-party apps. Good for Android developers that they can see the weaknesses and find ways to tweak the OS. However, this puts the onus of figuring out how to make the OS as consumer-friendly as possible on both consumers and app developers.

Obviously Google can’t field every deficiency. But when app developers are using their work to compensate for a weakness or omission in the OS, Google should be sitting up and listening. The company needs to work to make that setting or feature a native part of the operating system. The way Apple goes about this isn’t exactly ideal either; occasionally their feature additions are thinly veiled thefts of popular apps. If Google could find a way to integrate third-party-added features while still giving the original developers their due, that would be ideal.

I use Android at home and configure IOS at work. Some of the things that have annoyed me with Apples global settings is that you need to dig into settings to add email accounts, unlike droid were you can add an account within the mail app. Also after using the android keyboard all day the IOS keyboard drives me nuts. Also why does IOS force you to have an Apple ID + credit card to download free apps. very annoying especially at when you need to install skype and Google drive on an Ipad.

Regarding permissions. It used to be required that an app asks the user for permission to do certain things, and the user can deny. The problem was that apps were crashing left n right because devs did not do due diligence to accept that some permissions may be not granted. So google decided to solve the problem the way that gives power to apps to help boost the app store with apps that don't crash.

1) Turning off notifications from the notification dropdown/windowshade applies to ALL applications, regardless of their individual settings. It suppresses (or rather, delays until you turn notifications back on) all requests for applications to display a notification of some kind.

2) Not that I don't want improvements to the voice features, but realistically, who uses Siri except for a laugh after the initial gimmick of it wears off? Not many. This is further exacerbated by it not being able to interact with ALL apps (on either platform); when you replace the stock apps with superior offerings (not an option on Apple, but a massive selling point for Android) you lose that integration and thus the majority of the features actual utility.

3) Regarding privacy, does iOS ALSO show you per-app permissions? My reasoning being quite simple: I'm totally OK with Company A having certain permissions, but I'm really sketched out about that solitaire game wanting access to my contacts. Solely having a central place for overall permissions is less than ideal at the expense of granular, per-application control, for the simple fact that it leaves you either allowing eveyone or no one. This might limit functionality for many apps that you are OK sharing information with and want to use fully, while you don't trust another and wouldn't want to share it with them.

An article on 5 things that Android should steal from iOS, and yet the only thing I miss from owning an iDevice is missing...

The nature of media apps and the headset remote.

That's it. The one really good aspect of having an iDevice is that I can listen to a podcast or music - in any app - control the volume from the remote, use the mic button to stop *and* resume reliably when I need to pull the headphones out.

That's all I want - the ability to use the same (3rd party) headphones, with the same remote and have them function the same way on an Android device. Other than that, I would take my Android 4.2 Nexus as equal to or better than an iPhone for absolutely everything. But this is the one area where the iDevices still win.

The permissions issues bug me quite a bit. By default Android's permissions system is a lot more transparent, while iOS gives per-app control, it is restricted to several areas only instead of evaluating ALL permissions used by the app.

There are a lot of ways of getting round this for a rooted user, including setting up a firewall to prevent apps accessing the net (and denying keyloggers and malicious software from leaking any data) to my personal choice, using a granular permissions based app like Permissions Denied which is awesome for either denying or spoofing individual permissions on a per-app basis.

But there is no way getting round the fact that to see something like the privacy centre with per-app level of control enabled integrated into stock Android would make me incredibly happy. Seeing it in stock would also force badly coded apps to clean up their act and learn to fail gracefully when certain permissions are not forthcoming, preferably a nice notice popping explaining why the app can't launch.

That said, I don't see it as a security concern, the existing permissions model on Android requires about the same level of user awareness, i.e. to be paying attention, as iOS with the benefit of having the permissions screen appear every time an app is installed, regardless of it being installed from the Play Store, Amazon's store or sideloaded from an APK. It's more of a useful convenience thing to be honest, to be able to play around with an app that requests some dodgy permissions without risking your data. The foolproof thing to do from a security point-of-view is just to avoiding installing, but...

About privacy:Thanks to the Android Open Source Project, some community-created ROMs have implemented a very detailed permission control that allows the user to restrict what apps can do. So you can install an app and later on restrict its reach. That comes with some risks of course ans some apps don't handle that well (i.e. crash). And some use case are pretty dumb (prevent a navigation app to access GPS, for exemple) But it works well.

About privacy:Thanks to the Android Open Source Project, some community-created ROMs have implemented a very detailed permission control that allows the user to restrict what apps can do. So you can install an app and later on restrict its reach. That comes with some risks of course ans some apps don't handle that well (i.e. crash). And some use case are pretty dumb (prevent a navigation app to access GPS, for exemple) But it works well.

Hasn't this been shifted over to root apps? Cyanogenmod integrated this fairly well a few releases back but it seems to be have been dropped for some reason from Cyanogenmod 10 ROMS.

I don't mind using apps to use this functionality, with the exception of LBE I tihnk they are all open-source, so no risk of using something which doesn't do exactly as it should.

Edit: Also, fundamentally I do believe that a form of this being integrated into stock would be great. Some apps still fail to launch when nonsensical permissions are revoked, I've had particular trouble with phone state for example, which really should not be an issue. Only a stock implementation will force developers to fix up in this regard.

Google’s notifications, on the other hand, are still determined primarily on the part of the application, and users have to dig into app menus to toggle them on or off.

This isn't the case anymore. If memory serves, 4.1 allowed you to remove individual apps notification privileges at the system level through either long pressing and clicking "App Info", dragging an icon from the drawer up to the words "App Info" in the upper right corner, or going into Settings->Applications->App in Question and turning it off there.

As for those discussing what third party ROMs can do, that's great but irrelevant to the article. The entire point is that these should be in AOSP and not left up to third parties. A third party ROM is by definition made by a third party and thus not what this article is addressing.

So, Google voice provides the unified messaging, as well as lots of other features...

No it doesn't. I use google voice as my primary phone number and there is no integration with any messaging system besides SMS. it doesn't even do MMS.

I really don't understand why iMessages is seen as something to be mimicked on other platforms. I can see why someone who is heavily invested in Apple's ecosystem would value it highly, I'm sure it's slick and feature-filled etc. But it's still fundamentally an Apple ecosystem tool. That is not something which consumers should want to see mimicked anywhere else.

I'm sure Microsoft either have or will implement something similar for their ecosystem too, but I would be mildly annoyed if Google attempted the same play. Messaging platforms that are OS agnostic are a boon for consumers, it prevents lock-in and widens the net of contactable people to it's maximum. WhatsApp can do text, picture and even video, and it's available on pretty much all mobile devices. It doesn't have a plugin for desktops, but that's a different problem to wanting to see iMessages mimicked.

While I kind of agree about the iMessage, I would most certainly NOT want a messaging app that is limited to Android phones only. To me, the worst thing about iMessage is that it is useless if you want to contact the 70% of the world who does not use iOS.

Google should simply get on with merging Google Voice telephony/SMS and Google Talk into the Google+/GMail universe, solving several problems at once.

You'd then have all of this available the instant you registered your Android or any other brand of phone using your GMail / Google+ id.

2) Not that I don't want improvements to the voice features, but realistically, who uses Siri except for a laugh after the initial gimmick of it wears off? Not many. This is further exacerbated by it not being able to interact with ALL apps (on either platform); when you replace the stock apps with superior offerings (not an option on Apple, but a massive selling point for Android) you lose that integration and thus the majority of the features actual utility..

I use Siri all the time for setting alarms, starting apps, controlling the music app, doing quick fact checking, etc.

sporkwitch wrote:

3) Regarding privacy, does iOS ALSO show you per-app permissions? My reasoning being quite simple: I'm totally OK with Company A having certain permissions, but I'm really sketched out about that solitaire game wanting access to my contacts. Solely having a central place for overall permissions is less than ideal at the expense of granular, per-application control, for the simple fact that it leaves you either allowing eveyone or no one. This might limit functionality for many apps that you are OK sharing information with and want to use fully, while you don't trust another and wouldn't want to share it with them.

Yes, all apps (including stock apps) ask for permission before accessing GPS, contacts, pictures, etc. What's best, you can turn off individual app permissions from one place - the settings. Having to open each app to manage their permissions sounds like a goddamn nightmare.

Some good points here. It seems like many of the issues are due more to the way it's implemented than the actual OS. The way Google licenses just the base OS for OEMs to port to their devices has always been Android's biggest strength and its biggest weakness.

On one hand, you have more devices in more form factors and price points in the way you can buy or assemble a Windows or Linux computer in any number of configurations to fit your particular needs and budget. On the other hand, unlike Windows, there doesn't seem to be a relatively standard set of hardware or modular drivers that make it easy to install new OS versions and have them work on your existing hardware. You end up waiting for someone with access to the kernel/drivers to build new versions for your device or cobble them together from other devices with similar hardware.

One thing that stands out to me (as a daily user of both iOS and Android) is this statement from the article:

Quote:

The second issue is that some of Android’s shortcomings, even the ones outlined here, are filled out by third-party apps. Good for Android developers that they can see the weaknesses and find ways to tweak the OS. However, this puts the onus of figuring out how to make the OS as consumer-friendly as possible on both consumers and app developers.

As people have said before, it's not always how well a platform runs, but how well it fails. Every platform will be lacking in some way, whether it's an actual bug or an issue of how it works for your particular uses. I've found that with Android, one of the biggest benefits is how you are able to fix things that don't work for you. Like iOS, the standard configuration of Android works for me 90% of the time. It's when I need it to do something different that Android really shines. Changing behavior or interface is often just a matter of installing a third party app or changing a setting. In iOS, I often can't do that without jailbreaking. That is not a big deal to me since I'm used to messing with that sort of thing but when new iOS versions often go months without a published jailbreak process, I find myself in the same situation as Android users that can't upgrade their device until some unofficial developer finds a way to hack something together.

I'll probably continue to keep a device from each platform for the foreseeable future as long as each one has unique strengths and weaknesses as well as the occasional exclusive application.

Those are the exact things that work perfectly fine on Android's solution, though. Even the much-maligned S-Voice handled both of those just as well. Even then, if you use Swype or something similar, it's often faster and easier to just enter the info yourself rather than commanding, then dictating, waiting for the read-back, then correcting, etc. (Siri, Android stock, OR S-Voice, the case is the same for all). It's really just not a serious use-case, but as the article itself says, they WERE really reaching for something to complain about. The real irony (as also pointed out in the article) is that most of the features Apple's been adding recently started on Android. Talk about pots and kettles...

... for all of the competitiveness the current version of Android presents to iOS, the vast majority of Android users aren’t even running the current version of the operating system. It happens for a variety of reasons—whether their phone has been deemed too obsolete for more updates, their updates are snagged in carrier developer hell, or the users are just plain ignorant. The latest version of Android can have all the features in the world, but that does no good for the people who can’t, or aren’t, running it.

And wasn't Siri unavailable on older models of iPhone at release? (Despite being developed from an app that ran on those older models?) No idea if that's been fixed since, by the way - but at release, Siri was definitely "latest model only".This isn't intended as flame-war fodder, just to show that older models of phones often don't have the features of newer models, and that's a fact for all camps.iOS has been better than most at keeping some kind of parity, but it's not absolute parity across all devices.

Quote:

The second issue is that some of Android’s shortcomings, even the ones outlined here, are filled out by third-party apps. Good for Android developers that they can see the weaknesses and find ways to tweak the OS. However, this puts the onus of figuring out how to make the OS as consumer-friendly as possible on both consumers and app developers.

It also lets competing solutions, um, compete.

I think I'd rather have the choice that competition allows. It also solves some other issues - like not being locked down to only getting improvements when Google/Apple decide...

Quote:

Obviously Google can’t field every deficiency. But when app developers are using their work to compensate for a weakness or omission in the OS, Google should be sitting up and listening. The company needs to work to make that setting or feature a native part of the operating system. The way Apple goes about this isn’t exactly ideal either; occasionally their feature additions are thinly veiled thefts of popular apps. If Google could find a way to integrate third-party-added features while still giving the original developers their due, that would be ideal.

APIs, anyone?

But more seriously, this has to be a balancing act. We have to remember that in the long run, it annoys developers on your platform when you eat their lunch.If you make a habit of doing so, then they might leave.

The trick is to let those developers lead, let them do the experimentation, let them build their business - and then either buy them out OR improve your own software "just enough" that their product still has value.

This isn't the case anymore. If memory serves, 4.1 allowed you to remove individual apps notification privileges at the system level through either long pressing and clicking "App Info", dragging an icon from the drawer up to the words "App Info" in the upper right corner, or going into Settings->Applications->App in Question and turning it off there.

To me, the worst thing about iMessage is that it is useless if you want to contact the 70% of the world who does not use iOS.

But if 50%-60% of your social group has iOS, that's a real savings and is really useful. There are a lot of people for whom that's true.

That basically my situation. A good portion of my immediate and extended family have migrated to iOS, which has allowed me to opt out of SMS options, since 95% of the people I text I'm texting through iMessage. Coupled with the fact that I can then tie that through my iPad, it creates a convenient and cost saving option to communicate with people.

....which is exactly what I've use Google Voice Search to do for the past 2 1/2 years. That and "Navigate to [wherever]" probably account for about 95% of my GVS. I think voice search is about even on the two platforms for the practical way people actually use it.

The one place I give Android's search the edge is that the result can be redirected to whatever default app you choose for texting, search, clock functions. You don't have to use Google's, whereas for Siri, you can't repoint those to new default apps. The only unprogrammable intent/default in Google that really IS missing is "Navigate"....grr...c'mon Google, add a Navigate intent already!

Google Talk does indeed integrate with SMS, at least when you use it from GMail on a desktop. I realize you're talking about the Android Google Talk app, but Google Talk itself is does have more functionality than just the Android app. And Google Voice integrates with email, though not with Google Talk... =) Google also realizes how confusing and obnoxious is, and there is ample evidence (and even statements from executives) that they are fixing this, and soon. I would guess we'll see something at or around Google I/O in a couple of months.